Saturday, December 27, 2014

The fairly inebriated fellow with an empty glass to the right of him loudly exclaims, "Boy, am I toy-stee."

The first guy doesn't think much of it and orders a beer.

A couple minutes later he hears, once again, from the fellow on his right, "Boy, am I toy-stee."

So the first guy says, "Bartender, I'd like to buy this fellow right here a drink."

Bartender gives the man a beer which he drinks down in one, intense glug.

All eyes are on him.

He puts his empty glass down on the bar, burps loudly, leans back and says:

"Boy, was I toy-stee!"

I think this is a pretty funny joke. It stands on it's own right as just a silly little observation of some curious human nature.

But I also see into it and can relate on some deeper levels.

You see, at 12:45 A.M seven years ago this morning I had my last drink of alcohol.

And I had been very toy-stee, indeed.

I was out and about and looking for trouble. I knew where to get it but I didn't take the right back road and was subsequently pulled over by the cops. But funny enough I didn't just pull over when I saw their lights. Oh no, I didn't do that because I knew that if I did that I would have been busted directly across from the bar I was headed to.

No, instead I actually took a left across a busy street and drove up into a narrow parking lot that was adjacent to the bar. So, at least that way if anybody wanted to see me try (emphasis on "try") to walk a straight line they'd have to step outside to do it--which they did, several of them.

I have the whole police report of the incident. It's got some classic quotes from me, like when the cops asked how much I had drank that night I told them "Two glasses of vodka."

Not mixed drinks, mind you. Just glasses of vodka.

With ice, of course.

I was very toy-stee.

People talk about "desperate cries for help" and other signs they should have seen along the way. They talk about how there's a motive behind every action, and posit that people who abuse drugs, alcohol, and other vices have a "sickness."

I know that this is true in many cases. I've seen the evidence and I've seen the damage. And I've seen too many people who have gone over the edge and never come back. And I've certainly seen a few who have come back from the edge but not really all the way. And I know more than a few who might not ever change--who are proud to be the mess that they are. And I connect with these types of people because that's who I was. It hasn't been that long that I don't remember the pride I took in my ability to empty a .750 of vodka in one sitting--alone. When you're an alcoholic you take your sources of pride where you can get them. And I got mine in the form of a weekly full recycling bin of clear bottles with red Russian labels on them.

I've been watching old home movies from the 1970s recently. Watching these and listening back to reel-to-reel tapes of me and my family I see a pattern of behavior that is alarming. It's alarming in and of itself but also in the fact that I see how it followed me into my adolescent years and then on to adulthood.

I see a spoiled only child who asked for every toy on TV and got at least most of them for Christmas.

I see a child who had to always be heard and couldn't stand to not be the one being talked to.

I see a little boy who was loved by all around him and never knew anything else. I see the dream my mother had come true: the dream of a son to raise on her own--removed from the societal expectations of a having a dominant male figure in the house. My mother didn't have any desire for a partner in this grand scheme. She knew she was smart enough and woman enough to raise a child on her own. And by all accounts she was. But somewhere along the way the joy of the dream coming true led to my spoiling. It showed up in punishments that fell short of being disciplinary and lies believed because she wanted to believe them.

I see these things and realize that this atmosphere could possibly have been the breeding ground for the innate sense of invincibility that I developed as I dove deeper into a world of substance abuse. And when I moved away to Western Massachusetts it was because my Aunt Lynda had finally stepped in and given me the ultimatum of clean up or get out.

And get out I did.

It would take sixteen long years of slowly trying to kill myself ounce by ounce to finally hit a wall. I put more than a few people through the wringer over that time period. There are some who went along with me and try as they might never were able to get me to change. And there are some who were sad to see me change so drastically when I did. I know I'm a much different person now than I used to be. And because of that I don't really see some people who once were such a big part of my life. It's one of the things people fear the most when they consider a life of sobriety, and for good reason. But the flip side of that, at least for me, would have not been an acceptable solution for long.

And when I did hit that wall in the form of of swirling blue lights I can only say I am thankful that the discipline came in a form I couldn't talk my way out of, because I would have continued on that path of self-destruction, probably to the end.

But here I am, seven years later.

I'm still in my Christmas Pajamas at 2:30 in the afternoon.

I'm happy it's warm enough to go outside and rake leaves in the yard in the middle of December.

I've got a party to go to tonight where there will be several bottles of booze on the kitchen table, I'm sure. But I've been to fifty parties in the past seven years where there were bottles of booze on the kitchen table--and some of them I even brought myself.

But I'm not the guy who needs it anymore.

I'm not the inebriated starved-for-attention only child anymore.

I've learned my own form of self-discipline in these last seven years. Writing these words on these pages has been a big part of it. Because sometimes when you shine a light on the darkest part of the room you notice there was a lamp there all along--it just needed a new bulb.